The Orange Book - Chapter 1: Reclaiming Liberalism (David Laws)

(As promised earlier this week, here's the first of - hopefully - ten posts summarising and discussing The Orange Book. It's intended as a basis of discussion for those who are also reading the book, or are interested in discussing the issues presented within it.)

The Orange Book basically has two introductions: the stated one by Paul Marshall, which serves pretty much as an executive summary of the ten chapters of the book, and this chapter by David Laws which starts out by setting out the general philosophical tone of the book - that the Liberal Democrats need to enshrine a consistent philosophy of Liberalism within their policies - and then uses its latter half to go over in brief the ideas laid out in the rest of the book. It makes it that Laws is the primary driving force behind this enterprise, which of course explains why many of the brickbats associated with it have been thrown at him.

However, it's not been this section of the book that has caused Laws the most trouble - it's his later section (Chapter 7) on health policy that's drawn the most attention. It's interesting to note, though, that out of ten chapters in the book, it's been just one that's attracted the headlines and opprobium which does help to show - at least, within the Party - how actually uncontroversial much of this book is. There are many parts, especially in this chapter, that one can quote out of context and present as controversial but the book's now been out for a few weeks and many of those who one would expect to be crawling over it with a fine tooth comb looking for things to complain about have been notably silent.

Anyway, to the book itself - what is the Liberalism that Laws thinks the Liberal Democrats should 'reclaim'? He breaks it down into four pillars: pesonal lberalism: 'the freedom of the individual from all forms of oppression', political liberalism: 'the belief that power should be exercised through accountable and democratic structures, as close to the people affected as possible', economic liberalism: 'the belief in the value of free trade, open competition, market mechanisms, and the effectiveness of the private sector...combined with opposition to monopolies and instinctive suspicion of state control and interference' and social liberalism: 'the insight that personal, political and economic liberalism are not by themselves an adequate basis for securing for each individual a deeper and more meaningful sense of freedom'. These four principles, coupled with a strong internationalism have been the basis of Liberalism back to the days of Gladstone and Lloyd George.

He goes on to look at 'how liberal are the Liberal Democrats?' and identifies that while the party has generally stuck to its principles, the persistent problem has been when different parts of liberalism appear to come into conflict with each other. The main problem is that social liberalism - the empowerment of the individual - is often played as a trump card in triumphing over the other three principles, allowing liberals to justify limitations of other forms of liberty in the name of social liberalism. While Laws judges that the Liberal Democrats (and the Liberals before them) have generally acted in accordance with the principles of liberalism he identifies, but there are times when a seeming conflict has ended with them taking the less liberal position, often in the name of the greater good:

the development of a well-meaning 'nanny-state liberalism', in whuch respect for personal rights and freedoms has at times been compromised by the pursuit of other, no doubt well-intentioned, objectives.

Laws refers to this as a 'Liberalism a la carte' where the Liberal Democrats are 'picking and choosing which liberal principles we will apply, based upon our view of whether the end objective is well-intentioned or not.'

In terms of political liberalism he generally lays out the ground for the next two chapters by Edward Davey (on localism) and Nick Clegg (on Europe), talking of how Liberal Democrats have a strong record on decentralising power within the UK, but don't apply the same principles at a European level. I'll come back to this issue in more depth when I get to those chapters.

On the issue of economic liberalism he notes that both the LIberals and the Liberal Democrats have tended to oscillate back and forth being economic liberalism and state socialism over the last century though he takes time to note that 'the belief in economic liberalism is now being strongly reasserted by the party, under the leadership of Charles Kennedy.' He does however note an interesting reason for moves away from economic liberalism in that there was the recognition that the Labour Party championed ideas that came close to those of social liberalism while the Tories, especially under Thatcher, may have championed economic liberalism, but that was coupled with a perceived rejection of other forms of liberalism. Again, he sees it as case of ends being used to justify means.

Finally, Laws turns to the issue of social liberalism, and this is where he starts to talk about the themes that will be discussed in greater detail throughout the rest of the book - the question of how Liberal Democrats can stick to their principles of personal, political and economic liberalism, but still deliver the social liberalism they aim for as an end. He's effectively used the main portion of this chapter to set up the principles of liberalism, then left the rest of the book to show how they can be delivered. As such, it's an interesting introduction to the wider themes of The Orange Book and a pretty strong refutation of the assertion that is a 'right wing coup' within the party. Yes, Laws is perhaps more of a free-marketeer than the stereotype of a Liberal Democrat, but he's clear that economic liberalism is not an end in itself, but just one of the principles of liberalism that needs to be kept in mind when calculating how to achieve the ultimate aim of a liberal society.